The present invention relates generally to articles of clothing for an infant and, in particular, to clothing designed to provide additional traction for a crawling and/or walking infant.
Socks are one type of infant clothing. Dressing an infant with fabric socks is advantageous in many ways. Socks are aesthetically pleasing, keep the infant""s feet warm and protect the infant""s feet from minor cuts and abrasions. When the infant becomes ambulatory, however, socks can be disadvantageous on smooth floor surfaces, such as hardwood or linoleum floors, because there is a very low coefficient of friction between fabric material of the socks and the floor surface. This poses an increased risk of injury because the infant may slip and fall on the smooth surface while wearing only the fabric socks. Dressing the infant with shoes is one solution to this problem, but it is not always desirable, and is often difficult, to put shoes on an ambulatory infant.
This is a recognized problem, and many prior art infants socks, therefore, have been fitted with material that provides greater traction on the bottom of the sock. This material is also referred to as a gripper area. These prior art socks have worked well for those infants who have already progressed to walking, because the portion of the sock with the gripper area is in contact with the smooth floor surface. These prior art socks, however, have been disadvantageous for crawling infants, because typically the feet of crawling infants contact the floor surface with portion of the foot closest to the toes or the top of the foot, rather than the bottom of the foot. Because the top portion of the prior art socks did not contain a gripper area on the toes or top of the sock, the same problems were encountered as with socks without any gripper area, which results in an increased risk of injury to crawling infants wearing the prior art socks.
It is desirable to provide an article of infant clothing that will provide greater traction for crawling infants as well as for infants that are already walking.
It also is desirable to provide infant apparel that will protect the knees and elbows of crawling infants as well infants that are already walking.
The present invention concerns infant apparel for use with a crawling and/or walking infant. For example, one article of infant apparel is a sock member with an upper surface, a lower surface, and a toe portion connecting and enclosing the upper and lower surfaces at a leading edge of the sock member. A traction device in the form of a gripper area is attached to the exterior portion of the sock member and preferably extends from the upper surface to the toe area and further to the lower surface. The gripper area is preferably a frictional material that has a greater coefficient of friction than the material forming the sock member. The sock member can be tubular or foot-shaped for ease of dressing the infant. Alternatively, the gripper area is formed in a tread pattern and can include transversely or circumferentially spaced ribs along the upper surface, toe portion, and lower surface. In either sock shape, the gripper area can extend to a side area of the sock to aid a crawling infant.
The present invention recognizes that prior art socks were suitable neither for providing traction to crawling infants nor for reducing the risk of injury to crawling infants on smooth floor surfaces. With a gripper area at the top surface and toe portion of the sock member, the sock provides infants a greater ability to crawl on smooth surfaces, while reducing the risk of injury to the crawling infants. The present invention is also suitable for infants who have progressed to walking, because the gripper area extends to the lower surface of the sock member.
In addition to socks, articles of clothing such as jumpers and pants can have the traction devices on both the feet and knee portions. Furthermore, pads can be provided in the knee portions to protect the infant""s knees during crawling or in case of a fall during walking. The pads can be positioned on either the exterior or the interior of the material forming the article of clothing. The feet portions also can be detachable.
The present invention is a novel improvement over the prior art because while the prior art teaches many different varieties of infant socks, none of the prior art teaches an infant sock or foot portion with a gripper area extending to the toe, the side area and the upper surface of the sock member for the purpose of providing traction to crawling infants.